The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 says that you can no longer register assault rifles to the National Firearms Act registry, so any legitimately owned assault rifle costs $10,000 or more (plus 6+ month wait during which the ATF does a nice thorough background check on you. Also you have to have approval from local law enforcement.)

Unless you mean Assault Weapon, which has no current meaning outside of 8 states. Also "assault weapon" means "it's got scary 'military style features' which in no way change the lethal potential of the gun".

Side note: Most of us gun owners think these "open carry protestors" are fucktards too, especially when they open carry into private businesses. That's like carrying a picket sign into a business, only it's a picket sign that very trivially scares people. A much more effective protest is an empty holster spraypainted orange, or a holstered banana.

Grath wrote:The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 says that you can no longer register assault rifles to the National Firearms Act registry, so any legitimately owned assault rifle costs $10,000 or more (plus 6+ month wait during which the ATF does a nice thorough background check on you. Also you have to have approval from local law enforcement.)

Unless you mean Assault Weapon, which has no current meaning outside of 8 states. Also "assault weapon" means "it's got scary 'military style features' which in no way change the lethal potential of the gun".

Dude, you know I'm all about semantic nitpicking. But this particular variety of semantic nitpicking? Not really very likely to make people more comfortable about the guy with a gigantic gun standing in line behind them at the coffee shop.

Grath wrote:The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 says that you can no longer register assault rifles to the National Firearms Act registry, so any legitimately owned assault rifle costs $10,000 or more (plus 6+ month wait during which the ATF does a nice thorough background check on you. Also you have to have approval from local law enforcement.)

Unless you mean Assault Weapon, which has no current meaning outside of 8 states. Also "assault weapon" means "it's got scary 'military style features' which in no way change the lethal potential of the gun".

Dude, you know I'm all about semantic nitpicking. But this particular variety of semantic nitpicking? Not really very likely to make people more comfortable about the guy with a gigantic gun standing in line behind them at the coffee shop.

That was mostly just because the guy was wrong. Coincidentally, it's semantic nitpicking specifically because the politicians wanted to scare people - Assault Weapon Bans are 1994's version of the TSA: Inconvenient and ineffective, but it makes people think they're safer when they aren't. My more on-topic point was paragraph #3 there: "Even gun nuts (including the fucking NRA, which I forgot to mention originally) think these guys are assholes". Anyways, if we want to continue this, we should take it to somewhere in Politics Quarantine.

Büge wrote:Don't most places reserve the right to eject and/or not serve customers for any reason?

Yes, so these open carry "protests" have been happening at stores that have a policy of supporting the second amendment. Also known as "where we don't need to protest" and "pissing off the few stores that still allow you to carry a gun in the store".

Grath wrote:Anyways, if we want to continue this, we should take it to somewhere in Politics Quarantine.

That'd be a good idea, but I'm keeping this here for now since I think it'd be better to keep it all in one thread and a split is easier for the admins to do than a split/merge. Admins, when you get the chance...?

Grath wrote:Yes, so these open carry "protests" have been happening at stores that have a policy of supporting the second amendment.

The Second Amendment doesn't say anything about open carry on someone else's private property. Would you say a restaurant only supports the First Amendment if it allows you to scream racial epithets at the top of your lungs without kicking you out?

The Bill of Rights (well, the first 8 amendments, at any rate) is about government behavior, not the behavior of private entities. There is no cognitive dissonance between supporting somebody's right and saying "But don't do it on my property." I oppose sodomy laws and I think consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want -- but not in my living room.

Mothra wrote:Is the main reason people want to carry guns around that they're afraid another gunman is going to start shooting up a Pizza Hut and nobody is going to be able to stop them but the good gunmen

Legally owning a firearm is being empowered and permitted by society to kill or maim anyone you want for any reason of your choosing, at least once. Some of those reasons are arguably defensible, and some will get you put in jail (such as shooting an attractive white girl), but either way you've still decided on your own and without external oversight that someone had to die or be gravely wounded, and have enabled that decision.

Grath wrote:Yes, so these open carry "protests" have been happening at stores that have a policy of supporting the second amendment.

The Second Amendment doesn't say anything about open carry on someone else's private property. Would you say a restaurant only supports the First Amendment if it allows you to scream racial epithets at the top of your lungs without kicking you out?

It was easier to format "supporting the second amendment" than "allowing people to bear arms on their property" when I was still half-asleep this morning. I believe I still got my point across. These people are only, at best, getting bad publicity and provoking a negative response from stores that in the past have been supportive of exactly the type of thing they're trying to "protest".

Part of this comes from Texas - where you can open carry rifles, and concealed carry handguns (with a permit), but despite the mythos of Texas being full of gun-toting whackjob cowboys (that's more Arizona these days, BTW, in reality - Arizona has some of the loosest gun laws in the country IIRC) you can't open carry a handgun. In fact, in Texas if you're concealed carrying a handgun you are breaking the law if the outline of the gun can be seen through whatever clothing is concealing the handgun.

Grath wrote:(that's more Arizona these days, BTW, in reality - Arizona has some of the loosest gun laws in the country IIRC)

And a "No Guns" sign in the window of every bar I've gone to in the past 6 years.

It's entirely possible that there are people carrying assault rifles into restaurants somewhere in Phoenix metro to try and make some sort of point. But I haven't seen it. I see more handguns at Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's house than I do out on the street.

The push to allow guns into bars, restaurants, and college campuses IS alarming -- but I'm inclined to think it's the result of an overzealous legislature more than what the majority of the public actually wants. (To say nothing of bar owners.)

Thad wrote:And a "No Guns" sign in the window of every bar I've gone to in the past 6 years.

It's entirely possible that there are people carrying assault rifles into restaurants somewhere in Phoenix metro to try and make some sort of point. But I haven't seen it. I see more handguns at Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's house than I do out on the street.

The push to allow guns into bars, restaurants, and college campuses IS alarming -- but I'm inclined to think it's the result of an overzealous legislature more than what the majority of the public actually wants. (To say nothing of bar owners.)

To my knowledge, the push is more to deregulate where guns can go - so that it's up to the "No guns" sign in the window, so the bar owners get to make the call rather than the legislature.

Also, assault rifle is well-defined and means that among other features, it's select fire and thus can fire more than one round per pull of the trigger whether it's burst-fire or full-auto. I know you don't care about the semantics, but it's a very significant difference and we can't have a proper discussion if terminology is being misused.

Grath wrote:To my knowledge, the push is more to deregulate where guns can go - so that it's up to the "No guns" sign in the window, so the bar owners get to make the call rather than the legislature.

I don't know, the open-carry advocates sure seem pretty hacked off when Chili's exercises its right as a private business to tell them to keep the guns outside.

Grath wrote:Also, assault rifle is well-defined and means that among other features, it's select fire and thus can fire more than one round per pull of the trigger whether it's burst-fire or full-auto. I know you don't care about the semantics, but it's a very significant difference and we can't have a proper discussion if terminology is being misused.

I disagree. The difference between an automatic and semiautomatic rifle is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether a typical restaurant customer will feel threatened by seeing someone carry one inside.

I understand the point that nomenclature is important. But in this instance it's a distraction. It's not clarifying the discussion, it's changing the subject.

Mothra wrote:Is the main reason people want to carry guns around that they're afraid another gunman is going to start shooting up a Pizza Hut and nobody is going to be able to stop them but the good gunmen

TA wrote:Usually, the guns you see with these psychopaths are AR-15s. A gun technically sold only capable of semiautomatic fire but trivially converted to be full-auto capable is a goddamn assault rifle.

False. If it was truly trivial, they would be considered full-auto and banned by the ATF. See: The MAC-10, even if in semi-auto only configuration, is so easy to convert to full-auto that it is considered by the ATF to be full-auto unless the firing mechanism has been redesigned so that it fires from a closed-bolt. The AR-15 can be converted to full-auto, but it requires drilling an additional hole in the receiver and putting in a $5,000+ part (or committing a federal PMITA-prison felony).

Thad wrote:

Grath wrote:To my knowledge, the push is more to deregulate where guns can go - so that it's up to the "No guns" sign in the window, so the bar owners get to make the call rather than the legislature.

I don't know, the open-carry advocates sure seem pretty hacked off when Chili's exercises its right as a private business to tell them to keep the guns outside.

Because hurr MUH FREEDOMS THEY CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO. These people are also, in general, the fucktards who pull out a video camera and go "YOU'RE TRAMPLING MUH FREEDOMS" when they're just open carrying a rifle down the sidewalk and a cop gets called to see what the fuck they're doing.

Thad wrote:

Grath wrote:Also, assault rifle is well-defined and means that among other features, it's select fire and thus can fire more than one round per pull of the trigger whether it's burst-fire or full-auto. I know you don't care about the semantics, but it's a very significant difference and we can't have a proper discussion if terminology is being misused.

I disagree. The difference between an automatic and semiautomatic rifle is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether a typical restaurant customer will feel threatened by seeing someone carry one inside.

I understand the point that nomenclature is important. But in this instance it's a distraction. It's not clarifying the discussion, it's changing the subject.

Just say "rifle". Please. I'm pretty sure people would still be afraid if someone walked in with a hunting rifle, and then you're using the correct terminology.